It’s not ACORN. It’s New York Communities for Change. And it’s not new. It’s only a change of clothes and a dye job.

Suffering from a branding issue after James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles asked ACORN to help them set up a tax-evasion scheme for child prostitution and they responded with, “Ooohh. How exciting. How can we help?”, chapters within the corrupt national organization have decided to give themselves a new name. Or several.

That should take care of everything.

The embattled liberal group ACORN is in the process of dissolving its national structure, with state and local-chapters splitting off from the underfunded, controversial national group, an official close to the group confirmed.

They aren’t dissolving, they’re resituating. Matthew Vadum at BigGovernment.com is reporting that “the basic structure of ACORN, which is controlled from the top using interlocking directorates, remains essentially intact.”

Why does this suddenly feel like a magic trick, with the gaunt magician’s assistant in her sparkling yet nearly nonexistent outfit screaming “Look At Me!”, while the magician is busy replacing the previously impenetrable chains with paper-mache’.

“ACORN has dissolved as a national structure of state organizations,” said a senior official close to the group, who declined to be identified by name because of the fierce conservative attacks on the group that began when a conservative filmmaker caught some staffers of its tax advisory arms on tape appearing to offer advice on incorporating a prostitution business.

Oh Ben Smith of Politico. Your wording amuses me.

“Fierce conservative attacks”? Family values voters don’t like child prostitution. Or their tax dollars supporting it. How unPolanski of them.

“Caught some staffers”? By some you mean staffers in Brooklyn, Philadelphia, DC, Baltimore, San Diego and San Bernardino. Some. Yeah.

“Appearing to offer advice”? By actually offering advice, including detailing how to fill out paper work and classify prostitution as performance art.

I’ve watched those videos. After Hannah and Giles described their “business plan”, ACORN not only wanted to help, they practically squeezed the undercover reporters’ cheeks and asked to be Facebook friends.

To avoid their rather nasty reputation due to their nasty behavior, local chapters of ACORN are changing their names so that the next time they get caught promoting child sex-slavery, not everyone will have to get new business cards.

New York ACORN is now New York Communities for Change, ACORN in California is now ACCE (Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment), and Massachusetts ACORN is now New England United for Justice.

More state-level name changes are expected soon while the basic structure of ACORN, which is controlled from the top using interlocking directorates, remains essentially intact.

The ACORN network’s interlocking directorates are deliberately organized to help ACORN escape legal and public scrutiny. “ACORN hides behind a paper wall of nonprofit corporate protections to conceal a criminal conspiracy on the part of its directors, to launder federal money in order to pursue a partisan political agenda and to manipulate the American electorate,” according to a report from the Republican investigators of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The National ACORN organization, however, denies the “dissolving” charges and insists they still exist and Bertha Lewis is still the CEO. Oh, thank goodness. We were so worried about her employment status.

So, while ACORN is denying that they’re dissolving as a national organization, it doesn’t seem entirely out of the realm of possibility, given the issues they’re facing. Even if the national staff is sticking together, it’s not clear how else to describe what happens if ultimately enough state chapters choose to break off.

The new chapters are breaking away to get new identities, new hairstyles, new shoes. In the end, however, they are still ACORN down to their nutty center.

And maybe, if they’re lucky, a real pimp will walk into their doors with a valid child-prostitution ring and the entire organization will be saved.